Introduction to BizTalk Server

Introduction to BizTalk Servers

BizTalk Servers are the enterprise integration tool which can connect their business with secure tunnel with the persistent point. BizTalk server provides flexible and manage infrastructure with cluster environment which can be adopted by any organization for its business. BizTalk servers are work as the middle ware when two business talk to each other with the dynamic and secured information, It is provide high availability of data with the secure end to end data delivery, It is also provide its own mechanism to interact with any platform or language in the world. It provides user friendly interface for their users which can work at any time without having problem, developer may use it at console level, project manager may check it with its own level of expertise, end user may also work on its without having knowledge of internal system or programming etc.. BizTalk support its functionality at enterprise level with the simple work flow solutions with it’s authenticate delivery of data by which organization may work on big exposure with the entire world on less cost, with security and the availability of data.
BizTalk has scalability and adaptability with its entire artifact at all level, this let it to work with platform. It may upgrade with time and requirements and it may also have backhand support of Microsoft.
One more interesting factor with the BizTalk server is that they also persist out secure data if there any network failure. If transactions which are stuck in the middle due to network failure or any other down server in the network can be resumable at any time when network or any other glitches gets tune up.

BizTalk server Architecture

BizTalk is purely based on the messages terminology and that message is of xml type. Because as we know that xml is the only language in this world which is independent of platform, that’s mean xml can run and consume on every operating system. So the BizTalk is based on the xml with the extreme utilization of xml document with best practices.
Well the BizTalk is built on a publish/subscriber architecture in which a message is published in to the system, then received by one or more active subscriber. Subscriber always specifies the message they want to receive using a set of criteria about the message which based on the xml documents. The message is evaluated at the time it is published, and all of the active subscribers with matching subscriptions (indicated by filter expressions), receive the message.


Lifecycle of a Message



In this picture view, a message is received through a receive location then this message is processed by the receive location and then this message is published to the MessageBox database, MessageBox is the Database server which hold the persistent information of each and every message and it may help to content based routing as per subscriber call message, then message goes to the orchestration, Orchestration according to me is the heart of BizTalk server , To understand the BizTalk server we need to understand the Orchestration first, this message goes to the orchestration and this orchestration do the necessary and dynamic processes and send message as per subscriber request to the send port.
Now I am describing all the components of BizTalk server. Which are very important to describe because they are totally different and merely dependent on each other?
Receive Ports and Receive Locations
Receive port is tell about the receive location of a particular service in the BizTalk Server. It is like configuration which tells about the receive location of message in the BizTalk server. Each and every request will uniquely identify its schema root to hit that particular message. Receive location is redirect the entire coming hit to BizTalk towards its particular orchestration and process it through message agent.

Send Ports and Send Port Groups
Send port is the combination of pipeline and a send adapter, pipeline are the tool which is use with in the orchestration for parsing , validating and encrypting the send message from The send adapter is responsible for actually sending the message using a specific protocol such as SOAP, or FTP.
Orchestrations
Orchestration provides a graphical mode for development of a service which will crate a service with all of its binding of receive and send ports. When messages are sent from an orchestration, they are published to the MessageBox in the same manner as a message arriving at a receive location with the appropriate properties is inserted into the database for use in routing. Orchestration is the main resource of tool of BizTalk Server where we develop our service or provide shape to our service.
MessageBox Database
Message box is main persistent point of messages in the BizTalk sever, MessageBox is made up of two components: one or more Microsoft SQL Server databases and the Message Agent. Message agent bring the message to different persistent point in the whole BizTalk architecture .The SQL Server database provides the persistence store for many things including messages, message properties, subscriptions, orchestration states, tracking data, and host queues for routing.
Market Evaluation
A BizTalk server is growing with all of its analysis and the best example of this is the Kinship of Saudia Arabia, where BizTalk is implemented in all the bank and they using it without any hindrance and any problem. I take it as the small ERP which occurs in all the services running in the organization. This success rate is getting higher because Microsoft has developed it after a huge market survey with the perfect analysis and the needs of the market. This is usable in all type of business because of its adaptability and dynamic tools which may also provide solution in the small or big enterprise. This is proving a secure channel to all organizations which are growing their business with its requirements.




Conclusion: Being a new to BizTalk developer I have found it very trusted at all platform and reliable in all the strategic planning. We can use in all the stage and can use it as integration tool any where in the running organization to optimize business policies. It is developed to integrate different enterprise with a huge amount of data. Its feature make it more optimize such as clustering environment, load balancing , message throttling etc. Some of the application is running in the BANK, i.e. K.E.S.C and other multinational companies use UBL service for its monthly pay roll for its employee which is based on the BizTalk architecture, PSO also using its financial transaction on the bank having based on BizTalk services. BizTalk is extremely adaptable, I am experienced it’s easily integration with Java platform, SAP, .NET, Sybase, oracle etc. BizTalk is a very reliable tool which runs on les cost with high security of data, Right now my team in the U.B.L is the biggest team of BizTalk implementer in the entire Pakistan and we are also taking more training dig down more about the BizTalk servers. However it is very easy to work on the BizTalk server but it is not easy to maintain application on BizTalk; we can’t leave BizTalk server at one time because they also need to maintenance as every server requires.